The Last Of Us
by seraphim2db
Summary: At the moment of death Jesse and Kendra wake up to a barren world filled with the walking dead.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Jesse and Kendra or any Buffy related character. Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon do respectfully.  
I also think it's cool that this will be the first Jesse and Kendra pairing on

Prologue

Sunnydale Highway

Midday

A red Silverado zoomed past a 'Now leaving Sunnydale' sign and through an endless desert area with nothing but sand and blazing blue skies. The scenery would normally be one of beauty but it was made eerie because the road was empty as far as the eyes could see.  
There was no form of life around besides the man and woman in the truck and there was nothing that could be heard except the thrum of the engine.

"We need to stop for gas." the woman said with a Jamaican accent to her companion as she looked down at the gas gauge.  
Even through the dirt and grime on her face she was beautiful, with mocha colored skin and shoulder length hair that looked to be recently cut. It wasn't done professionally but it still looked fetching on her.

Taking his eyes off the road for a second he looked at the gauge himself and saw the hand flirting on empty. The boy... no man was haggard, exhausted, and unshaven. And just like his companion he was dirty and had bits of dried up blood caked on his cargo pants.

"If I remember right there's a gas station not far from here."

Driving for another twenty minutes as promised they pulled into Norman's Gas and Snacks. The lot was a mess and had a huge sprawl of abandoned cars that formed a form of a semi-circle around the pumps. It was so bad that the vehicles spilled out into the road and in a parking lot across the street.

Weaving slowly past the cars, he cut the engine to the truck about fifteen feet from the pumps. That was as far as he was going to get to them. Gathering an empty five gallon gas canister from the backseat, he got out and un-holstered his Colt Python .357 Magnum.

Taking a look around as she got out herself, she strapped a battle ax on her back using an improvised sheath, before getting her Horton Scout HD 125 Crossbow. Taking a deep breath she reached out with her Slayer senses, before loading a bolt into her bow. Not feeling any immediate danger, she started to relax... just a little bit.

Looking up she let out a sigh, before getting her friends attention. Chancing a glance up, he cursed under his breath as he saw a scrawled sign that read 'No Gas' flapping harmlessly in the wind.

With a roll of his eyes he started to walk away into the eerie silence of the lot, the only sounds being the breeze and the flies. As he started walking he noticed laundry, luggage, and old camp fires all around in the lot. He idly wondered if everybody made it out of this mess at all but upon further inspection he saw bodies slumped over in their vehicles. Most died, heads banged against their dash boards and others were laying out on the ground.

"I don't understand." his beautiful companion started as she walked up behind him. "Why did dese people stay here?"

"They probably didn't know how bad it was, Ken." Jesse said after a moment of thinking. "They were probably waiting for a gas truck that obviously never came and they probably didn't have enough gas to get far."

"So what do we do now?"

"First we siphon gas from these abandoned cars. Hopefully there's enough to fill us up. Then we search for anything useful, and check the gas station for what little food or water that might be left."

"Dat sounds..."

"What's wrong?" Jesse asked as he followed her line of vision. Seeing about five Walkers shambling from behind a dumpster, he pulled the hammer back on his gun, only for Kendra to lightly touch his arm.

"Start getting de gas." she said as she raised up her bow and started to move forward. "I'll take care of dese geeks."

Holstering his gun he watched her start to slaughter the zombies before gathering a hose and collecting gas.

* * *

Seeing a sweet mocha meal striding towards it, the zombie opened his mouth to let loose a moan of hunger, only for it to close as an ax was embedded in it's head. Not loosing momentum, Kendra did a spin and kicked her next would be attacker in the knee, shattering it. As the sickening crunch of bone resonated in the air, she chopped off her head with one flawless swoop.

Dropping the ax, she brought up her crossbow and let a bolt fly. Finding it's target with pinpoint accuracy, her next victim fell to the ground bonelessly. With only two left, Kendra took off in a slow jog and leapt into the air catching the nearest one to her full in the chest. As it fell to the hard concrete, she stepped on it's head crushing it like a watermelon. Reaching down she gathered her ax, ignoring the squishy flesh sound, she swung it in a upward motion cleaving the ghouls head in two.

With her grisly task done, she was about to turn around and join Jesse. That was until like a sick and twisted ovation the corpses in the cars roused at the sound of the fight. Dead faces reared up, heads swiveling, eyes gleaming with hunger. A hunger that only she could satisfy for the moment. But it was a meal that they would never get.

"Just anodder day." she mumbled to herself as she headed towards some cars. Her ax dripping with blood and gore.

Cue The Walking Dead opening theme music.

Please review


	2. Chapter 1 Where Do We Go From Here

A/N Thanks for the reviews .Dawn and Allen Pitt. Hey Allen I hope you got my pm. If not check your inbox.

Chapter 1

Where Do We Go From Here

It had taken Jesse and Kendra longer then they had originally thought to check all of the cars for supplies, but the reward was greater then they had expected. They had scavenged a small baskets worth of antibiotics and other medications, as-well as a few med-kits, a baseball bat, a couple of shotguns, three handguns, and a small, very small cache of ammo.

After siphoning out all the gas from the long abandoned cars and fully filling up the truck, they still had at-least another two gallons of gas left. As soon as they cleared out the bodies from the store and set them on fire, the day quickly left them and night descended.

Deciding that they would spend the night in the small station, even before it had started to rain, they gathered some sleeping gear from their truck and gathered up a big metal barrel and made a fire in it.

The place was big enough to move freely in but still seemed tiny. Mixed in with the fact that there was no power and the knowledge of what could be lurking outside created a eerie backdraft of things to come.

"Our beans should be ready in a couple of minutes." Kendra said as she handed him a can of Vienna sausages.

"Thank you." he replied, accepting the food. It wasn't an ideal meal of beans and Vienna but it would have to do. They had only found about five cans of food, some animal crackers and a long expired bag of chips, when they ransacked the store. They had found every thing they had needed for the moment except water.

As the smell of the beans floated in the air, Kendra gave him his portion before sitting down cross legged on the floor with her own. As the two started to dig in they both sat in a comfortable silence as they ate. A silence that was surprisingly broken by Kendra.

"So where do you tink we should go next?"

As she asked the simple question it seemed to catch him off guard. It was funny that she was the warrior, but she leaned on him heavily as if he were the leader of the two. Or was he... Ever since they had found each other in Sunnydale his guidance was a deciding factor in keeping them alive.

Seeing that she was expecting an answer he simply said. "I don't know."

"According to Romero we should stay out of major cities." she went on. "So we can't go to Los Angeles."

"So we're gonna follow George Romero's movies now?" Jesse asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. Honestly there wasn't much to laugh about these days. Especially after what had happened to them no less then twenty four hours ago when they were in Sunnydale.

"Why not?" she asked as she stood to her feet to stretch her legs. "It seemed to have worked for us so far."

'She has a point.' Jesse thought as he gave her a shrug. After what happened in Sunnydale there was no way they could go back there. Taking a map out of his backpack he started to look over their options.

"The way I see it we only have two options right now." Jesse said after a few minutes of pouring over the census map. "There's a town called Frazier Park about another thirty five minutes from where we are now. It says here that it's a mountain community and it only has a population of around five thousand."

"What's our otter option?" she asked as she sat on the floor and started to clean and then sharpen her ax.

"Our other option is... a place called Acton. It's about an hour from where we are now and is on the outskirts of L.A."

"Then we must go to Frazier Park."

"Why?" Jesse asked as he folded the map and put it away. "Wouldn't it make more sense to be at-least somewhat close to the big city to go on supply runs?"

"Under normal circumstances yes..." she paused as she stopped sharpening her weapon. "but tink about it. After the geeks have gotten done feeding where do you tink they're going to go."

"To the smaller cities." he said catching on. "We'll leave first thing in the mor..."

Before he could complete his sentence a loud crack of lightning boomed through the sky. The loud noise had merely startled Jesse, but Kendra had looked like she was about to have a full on panic attack. Allowing himself to drop his guard, which in times like these was usually unwise to do, Jesse started to snicker.

Her heart calming down to a normal pace, she looked over and saw her partner chuckling at her.

"You tink that's funny do you?" she asked, sending a death glare his way.

"I'm... I'm sorry Ken." he managed to say through his bout of chuckles. "It's just that you told me you fought demons for years and I saw you kill zombies without breaking a sweat. Now you freak out when you hear a little thunder."

"Dat's not funny." she said to him as she lightly threw her empty bean can at his head. Nimbly dodging the can he continued to laugh as she scowled at him.

Thunder clapped again, this time much louder, making the both of them jump. Mostly so Jesse this time, of whom knocked over a few glass beer bottles and a clean five gallon bucket that was behind him. Seeing an almost smug look on Kendra's face, he was just about to say something when she suddenly stood up and grabbed the bucket and one of the bottles of beer.

"I know alot of people say drinking helps but it really doesn't." Jesse said as she gave him a look.

"I wasn't planning on drinking dis." she replied as she proved it by pouring it out.

"Hey we could have drank that." Jesse told her in mock anger.

"In dese circumstances it's not good for us." she said as she opened the store door, bent the gutter pipe and placed the bucket outside to collect rain water. "Alcohol is a diuretic." she said as he stared at her dumbly.

"It will make us...urinate frequently." still with the blank stares from him. Seeing that he wasn't getting it she stared back at him incredulously before changing her tactics. "Beer bad... rain water better."

"Oh, why didn't you just say so?" he asked as his eyes started to droop.

Shaking her head, she laid down beside him on the small pallet they had made up. She had to admit herself that she was exhausted.

"Hey Ken." Jesse started sleepily. "Tell me a little about yourself."

"Dare's not much to tell." she said, her back against his.

"Well... tell me when you started to be afraid of thunder?"

She was about to tell him that she was a Slayer and was afraid of nothing. Not even death. But just admitting to herself that she was afraid of something made her feel ... more human. And she had to admit that she felt incredibly human around her new friend.

"Every since I was a little girl." she admitted. "Dat noise has always unnerved me."

"Oh well... that makes sense."

"Why do you say dat?"

"Because your whole life has been about control. The Watcher's telling you to do this and do that. But something as simple as lightning and thunder is something they have no control over... not even you."

As he said that Kendra sat up and stared at her friends back. It was so weird that a minute ago he acted as if he had no formal education, but now he was totally intuitive. And now that she thought about it maybe he was right. Maybe it was more then just a normal childhood fear.

"So why do you call the zombies, geeks?" he asked breaking her train of thought. "I mean they aren't exactly math wiz's."

'And here we go again.' she thought ruefully to herself.

"Oh um... the day before me Watcher Mr. Zabuto took me away, me parents took me to a Carnival. When we got there dey had these people dat would eat anything. Even glass... Jesse... Jesse."

Hearing him snoring she rolled over and couldn't help but put a grin on her face. For weeks this was the first time she had seen him with a peaceful look on his face. Taking their blanket she put it over him, before getting comfortable herself and drifting off to another dreamless slumber.

Please review it helps me get the chapters out faster and lets me know that you like the story so far.

A/N Sorry for the lack of action in this chapter but I wanted people to get a range on the personalities of Kendra and Jesse and to get a sense of direction of where they want to go. The next chapter is going to give a little, not all, of the backstory on how they met.

Also here's a fun fact. This is actually the third draft of this story. The original story was supposed to be called I Am Willow. It was going to be a sort of I am legend story where a plague hit earth and Willow was one of the only people to survive. Alot of people were going to turn into monsters and her and Spike were trying to survive in what was left of Sunnydale. I couldn't get the story to turn out right, but don't ask me how that story turned into this one, lol.


	3. Chapter 2 Dream State

Chapter 2

Dream State

"No...no..no." a figure mumbled almost feverishly as it writhered on a cold floor. Finally coming out of his fit of nightmares, Jesse sat up off the floor, sweat pouring gingerly off his brow.

His hand instinctively going to his neck, he sighed in relief as he didn't find any blood or a bite mark. The last thing he remembered was talking to a beautiful blond, her face turning into something hideous, and then nothing.

'Maybe it was just a nightmare.' he thought to himself as he rubbed at his eyes. Shaking off the wave of vertigo, he took in his surroundings and saw that he was in a club.

It was confirmed where he was when he looked up and saw a ragged dusty banner that said the Bronze. Standing to his feet, he looked around the seemingly abandoned club and saw it in a state of disarray. Tables were overturned, broken glass littered the floor, and the smell of something putrid hung in the air.

"What the hell happened here?" he asked himself, his earlier headache subsiding.

Walking over to the one table that wasn't overturned, his eyes almost bugged out of his head as he read the headline of the paper. THE DEAD WALK. Picking it up to read it, he suddenly heard movement, followed by the sound of something wet.

Turning around to where he thought the sound was coming from, he walked to a corner and saw someone on the floor leaning over something. Having seen tons of horror movies growing up, he knew better not to say anything, rather he stood and watched to see what the figure was leaning over.

Even having had watched all of those movies still didn't prepare him for what he was now seeing. The man or thing was currently eating the eyes and face off of what used to be a woman. The sickening display made Jesse gasp, immediately alerting the thing that was munching on the woman.

As the thing looked up, Jesse saw the glazed over eyes, lacerations on it's face, and blood dripping from it's mouth. He knew exactly what it was. It was a zombie.

Upon recognizing Jesse as a warm dessert, the zombie let out a loud scream. Snapping out of his daze, the teen began to back peddle. Hitting the back of his leg on a table, he let loose a scream that any hollywood horror starlet would be proud of.

Realizing he had backed up against the wall, the once man slowly advancing, he turned around and thanked God that he was near an exit door. Giving the thing one last look, he hit the bar on the door and ran outside, the sun bathing him in it's golden rays.

Making sure the door was all the way closed, he turned and ran smack dab into someone. Preparing himself for another run, he looked up and saw one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen in his life.

She was about five four with light mocha colored skin with a pair of heart shaped pouty lips. Her hair was up in a tight braid, but what was most amazing about her were her eyes. They were a light brown but there was something else to them. Something that seemed almost predatory.

Taking in her figure he saw that she had on a leather jacket and was armed to the teeth with weapons. She had what looked to be a sword strapped to her back, a bandolier with knives and what looked to be wooden stakes across her chest and she was carrying a double edged medieval ax.

Coming back to reality he realized that she was speaking to him.

"What?"

"I asked if you were alright, sir?"

'God she has an accent. Could anything else make her even hotter.' he thought to himself. "Yeah... I... just what's going on?"

"I don't know, but you are de first real person I've seen since waking up." she informed him. "I came over dis way because I heard a woman screaming."

"Oh that was... that was me." he replied sheepishly, making her raise an eyebrow up at him.

Hearing shrieks in the distance, she briefly closed her eyes and reached out with her Slayer senses. She could feel a few... no dozens of the things coming from a distance.

"I tink it is time for us to go."

Not arguing with her the two sprinted through the empty, garbage-strewn streets of Sunnydale. It amazed him how stealthy his companion was and even more amazing how he was able to keep up with her as she dodged and ducked down alleys and bushes as they made it to where she was leading them.

It turned out that the house he was being led to was owned by some girl he thought he had met a day before named Buffy, which turned out to be a dead end. The house was boarded up and seemingly abandoned just like the rest of the houses they had passed. The only useful thing he had found in it was a backpack, a flashlight, and a few cans of food.

When they had managed to get into the house they saw that it was in ruins. They had also discovered that all the power in the city was out and that the phones didn't work. Remembering that he still had the paper in his hands, he was just about to sit down and read it when his beautiful saviour spoke.

"I don't tink we're safe here."

"Why do you say that?" he asked. As if on cue they heard footsteps followed by a low growl.

Cursing herself under her breath, Kendra berated herself for not making sure the house was secure on the second floor, before getting to comfortable. She was taught better then that.

Quickly taking out the flashlight, he shone it to where the kitchen door was and instantly wished that he hadn't. The thing was short with bloody mottled up blond hair. But that wasn't his biggest concern at the moment. It was her face, or lack there of.

Her eyes were glazed over in a milky white hue and her once cute lips were now crusted over with blood and drool. With the sound of inescapable torment coming from her mouth, she lunged at them.

Sweat pouring off his brow, Jesse awoke with a start. It was all just a dream. But it wasn't just a dream. That had happened almost a month ago in Sunnydale the day he and Kendra had woken up from... death. It was all because of Willow that... he didn't want to think about her right now. Or about the Zombie Buffy of whom's house he and Kendra were in that day.

His eyes starting to focus and his senses coming to him, he sat up and saw Kendra on the floor doing some quick push ups. He saw sweat pouring off her brow so she had to have been doing it for awhile.

"Are you okay?" she asked as she jumped up and started doing burpee's.

"Yeah... yeah it was just a bad dream." he said as he threw the blanket off himself and stood up.

"You seemed so tired so I let you sleep." she said mid-burpee. "It's past noon now so when I finish with me exercise, I'll be ready to go."

After a few more minutes they gathered their gear and put it into the truck. After getting something to eat they went back to the bucket and smiled as they saw that it was nearly full, since it was sitting close to where the gutter pipe was.

Filling the three glass bottles up with water and then drinking their fill of it they still had about a half a bucket of water. Taking turns they decided to take a much needed wash up, to get rid of the sweat, dirt, grime, blood and weeks of funk that were on them. To be just brutally honest, they stank.

Finally after getting done they tossed out the dirty water and threw the bucket in the back of the truck. Using deodorant, toothpaste and a few unused tooth brushes they had found, they finally felt fresh and clean.

As they neared the truck, Jesse smiled before he tossed Kendra the keys. Giving him a look, she frowned.

"Look you need to learn how to drive." he started before she could say anything. "God forbid but something might happen to me one day and we might have to count on your driving skills to get us out of a jam."

"I don't know about dis..."

"Ken come on." he said putting a hand on her shoulder. "I'll be right next to you and it's not like we have to worry about any other drivers on the road."

"I..." admitting that he had a point, she reluctantly opened up the door and got into the truck. Taking in a deep breath, Jesse got in the passenger side and started to give instructions on what to do. Once he was satisfied that she got the basics of what to do, they took off on a journey to their next adventure.


	4. Chapter 3 Wal-Mart Pitstop

Chapter 3

Wal-Mart Pitstop

A pair of crows squabbled over a red smear of road kill on the hot summer road. Just this usual occurrence let one know that this world was now ruled by blood. As the couples truck drove over the hill, the birds shrieked and flew away, unhappy that they were being disturbed from their meal.

"You're doing pretty good." Jesse complimented, not taking his eyes off of the road.

"I still tink dat you should take control of the vehicle." Kendra said as she kept mumbling under her breath, 'Keep your hands at ten and two.'

"You worry too much." he said as his eyes went wide. "Look over here, Ken."

"But you told me not to take me eyes off of the road." she said as they started to drive on an overpass.

"Just look over here."

Doing as she was instructed, Kendra took her eyes off of the road and looked over to what Jesse was staring at. It was a huge store and in passing she saw that it was a Wal-Mart.

"We gotta go down... holy fuck look out!"

Hands tightening on the wheel, Kendra snapped her head back around and saw that they were about to hit a walker. With a yelp she swerved and within an inch ended up missing the undead man. As the truck spun for a few more seconds, it was a struggle but she finally managed to get it under control.

"Are you okay?" Jesse asked as they both sat there breathing heavily.

"Ye...yes..." Kendra replied her nerves frayed.

"It's fine you... you did okay. Atleast you didn't flip the truck over." he joked, trying to lighten the mood. It didn't work however as she looked over at him incredously. "Ummm... I'll drive the rest of the way."

Changing seats, Jesse blew out a breath, he didn't know he was holding and continued their drive. The lone walker following slowly behind them arms outstrecthed, oblivious to the fact that his unlife almost ended.

* * *

"What are you writing down?" Kendra asked as they sat in the store parking lot, making plans on how to go about getting supplies.

"I'm writing down a grocery list." he replied honestly.

"A grocery..." irritated she snatched the paper out of his hand and looked down at the list that he had made.

Toilet Paper!

Deodorant/soap

Razor

First Aid Kits/rubbing alcohol/peroxide

Socks/Clothes/Shoes

Water

Canned Food Soup/Beans/Vienna/Fruit/vegetables

Can Opener

Something to read... God I never thought I would write that but anything to read

Batteries/ And a battery charger

Pots and a Pan

Lighter/Matches

Propane Camp Stove

Flash Lights

Knives for killing and small ones to use for cooking

Fishing gear

Ponchos

Small Propane bottles

Backpacks

Bolts and hopefully ammo

"I know it's probably going to be insane in there but I still wanted us to be semi organized." he said as she handed him back the list.

"Hopefully if somebody ransacked this place earlier they left this stuff behind. If not we'll just take whatever we find that's useful. The good news is besides the food, water, clothes, toiletries and reading material everything else is in the sporting goods department."

"And the bad news?" she asked.

"The bad news is we don't know how bad things are in there so I'm not going to use any guns..."

"No guns but..."

"It's alright. I know I haven't had much practice with swords and stuff but we can't afford to draw to much attention to ourselves in there. Besides I have you to watch my back." he said placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Alright." she agreed after a moment of thinking. She had to admit that he had come up with a solid plan and it basically covered everything they needed. "So what's de plan?"

"Simple, we go in, bash all the zombie brains we can, grab everything on the list and get the hell out of there." he said seriously as he reached into the back seat and grabbed the baseball bat and a bowie knife.

"Dats it?" she asked incredously. "Dat's your plan?"

"That's all I got." he said as he hopped out of the truck. "Unless you have something better."

Steeling herself she took a breath and got out of the truck, cross bow and axe in hand. "Alright dat's do this."

Knowing that the automatic doors didn't work anymore they used the side entrance and pushed the door open and went into the store.

"Hey look here's a store map." Jesse said as they got into the entrance way of the building. He was thankful that the ceiling was made mostly of glass that allowed sunlight into the store, so he didn't have to use the one little flashlight they had. "Okay where's the groce..."

Before he could finish his sentence they both heard a low moan. Before Jesse even turned around Kendra shot off a bolt that struck a door greeter zombie in the head, making it drop like a sack of potatoes.

"I'm listening." his beautiful friend said as she pulled her bolt free, from the long dead, once woman's forehead.

'Damn she looks good when she does that.' he thought to himself. Taking his eyes off of her butt and then her beautiful face as she turned around, he concentrated on the task at hand.

"Okay, the grocery section is on the left side of the store. Once we get the food and water, we'll hit the health and beauty aids section, and then we have to haul ass because the sporting goods section is on the far right side of the store."

Their plan made they grabbed a grocery basket each. Having to stop and make sure the carts weren't noisy they took off towards the grocery side of the store, looking all around them as they went. Half way in they didn't hear a peep but it didn't stop the smell from assaulting them. It was a mixture of death, fish and long expired milk.

Just to be honest it smelled like shit.

Ignoring the instinctive impulse to gag and throw up they made it too the can goods aisle and were surprised by the amount of stuff that was still on the shelves. Using his arm he raked all of the canned beans that he could into the basket before moving onto the soup. Judging by the amount of food that was left the town must have fell early and people didn't even make it to this place to gather much needed supplies.

"Oh excuse me." he said aloud as he bumped into someone.

Seeing Kendra further down on the end of the aisle getting sweetpeas, canned chicken and Vienna, his eyes widened as he turned around and saw five zombies behind him, the one behind him already with it's arms outstreched.

It was staring at him with deep, sunken in eyes. His flesh was, or what was left of it was drawn tight on it's skull and bones. It's lips were torn away leaving a sick and twisted grin. Looking a little closer he saw chunks of old, rotted meat in it's teeth.

"Ke..ke...Kendra." Jesse called her name.

Her Slayer hearing picking up his distress, a bolt flew into the crowd and took down the one nearest him. Feeling a little less cramped up, Jesse turned around and with all the force he could muster crushed the head of the one that was behind the first.

As blood and gore shot up into the air and the walker's body slammed onto the shelf, he heard his friend call his name.

"Jesse move out of the way."

Getting as close to the shelf as possible Kendra ran past him in a blur and caught her target full in the chest with a side kick, knocking all three of the geeks to the ground. Quickly taking off her axe she chopped into their heads until they were nothing but a smear on the ground.

"Whoa... I... I... hope I never make you mad." he said trying to lighten the mood.

"I tink I hear more of them coming." she whispered, breath heavy as she ignored his comment. Her ears were practically twitching trying to pick up every possible sound around her.

Stepping off the aisle he could see three walkers struggling to get to where they were, not having much luck as they tripped over pallets and other overturned merchandise. Hearing something fall off a shelf close to them sent a shiver up his spine.

"We better make this fast."

Gathering the rest of the food into the basket and then six gallons of water, they made a run for it and tossed three big 24 roll packs of toilet tissue and toiletries into their baskets as they passed paper goods and HBA respectively. Getting through the pharmacy area they gathered whatever medicine and antibiotics they could before getting a few first aid kits, peroxide, and rubbing alcohol.

As they turned around a corner, Jesse instintively brought up his bat hitting a zombie square in the face. The force of the blow sent it's head snapping back and sending a viscious wave of viscera in the air.

"What size shoe do you wear?" Jesse suddenly asked.

"What?" she asked back, as she sliced through the head of a less then friendly neighborhood shopper.

"I said what size shoe do you wear?"

Seeing that they were close to the shoe department, she breathed a sigh of relief. 'Good de boy hasn't gone crazy.' she thought to herself as he put a couple pairs of shoes for himself in the basket.

Telling him her size, he then moved on to the clothes section and started throwing a few things in.

"Jesse we must hurry."

"Just don't let us get overrun." he half shouted as he placed the last of his items in the basket. "Alright, my cart is full, we'll have to use yours to get what we can in the sporting goods department."

Nodding her head the two were on the move. Gathering a few more items on the list which were strangely sales items on end caps and stack bases the two had finally made it mid ways into the store.

Seeing the books and magazine section in between pets and electronics he stopped for a second and focused on the happy smiling faces of the stars on the magazine covers. He idly wondered if any of them made it, before tossing a few magazines and then books into Kendra's cart.

Seeing that he also put dvd's into the cart she gave him a look as if saying 'what the hell are you doing?' Just giving her a shrug in reply he threw tons of batteries into the cart aswell, as they both took off into a run again. Seeing more of the things coming out of the shadowy darkness, they knew that they were being slowly surrounded and that they had to get out of the store soon.

Finally making it to the back of the store, Kendra started throwing things into her basket, just as Jesse went down the aisle where the ponchos were and walked smack dab into a dead body.

The poncho zombie made a noise in his throat that sounded almost like a scream before lunging at him. Before Jesse could bring up his knife, poncho slammed into him sending both of them to the ground.

His knife went skidding with a metallic whisper to the ground. Grabbing the geek's head in one hand, trying to keep his rotted mouth away from his throat, his other hand hit madly on the floor trying to find his weapon that was inches from him.

Suddenly one of poncho's long dead hands found its way to Jesse's throat and began to squeeze. For a dead man there was a strength to his grip. A grip that almost made him lose conciousness.

Hand finally feeling metal, just as he felt his body about to shut down from lack of air, he used all the strength that he could muster and jabbed the knife through his temple. Even at the same time a bolt went through the back of the man's head showering his face with blood. The zombie fell sideways off of him, revealing Kendra of whom stood with her crossbow clasped tightly in her hands.

As their eyes met Jesse saw true fear in her eyes. It was fear over losing him. That's when he knew. Seeing that she was almost frozen in place, he stood to his feet and wiped his face with the back of his sleeve.

"I'm okay." he told her as calmly as possible. Seeing that she relaxed some he continued. "Now let's get the rest of what we came here to get and get the hell out of here."

Hearing moans in the distance they redoubled their efforts and threw the things they knew they needed and even things they didn't need into the basket until it was full. Seeing that they had everything and then some they ran for the front of the store.

Ten feet short of getting to the exit, Jesse suddenly stopped his basket.

"I gotta get something, Ken." he said breathlessly.

"What..."

"I'll just meet you at the truck!" he yelled as he ran back into the store.

Looking at the back of his head with rage in her eyes, she trusted him to do what he had to do. Taking both baskets, she lightly kicked open the side door and pushed both of them out. Hearing glass break, her eyes widened and she was about to turn around and go back for her friend, but as soon as she did she bumped into him. Glancing over his shoulder and seeing more then a dozen or so walkers behind him, she lost what she was going to say in her throat and both of them ran out the door.

Hauling ass to the truck, the walkers slowly shuffled out of the store behind them. Pushing the baskets as fast as they could, they had finally made it to the truck. Knowing that they didn't have much time to load all of the stuff they had gotten, he looked to Kendra on what to do.

Wordlessly she picked up one of the baskets and dumped the contents into the bed of the truck. Slack jawed, Jesse watched as she put that one down and did the same thing to the other one.

"Holy fuck!" he shouted, as she ran past him and got in the passenger side.

"Come on, let's go!" she yelled out the window. Finding his feet, he hopped in the drivers seat and took off. The zombies left behind in their dust.

* * *

"What were you tinking!?" Kendra yelled as they drove away from their Wal-Mart death trap. "What did you go back for that was so important?"

"I...I'll tell you later." was his only reply as he slipped a small black box into his pants pocket.

"No ya tell me now!" she screamed uncharacteristically as he pulled over the truck. Her Jamaican blood pumping hotly in her veins.

"I was getting you this." he lied as he opened up a wal-mart bag and showed her it's contents. Truth be told he had gotten the bag as soon as they headed over to HBA. Looking inside she saw some ebony hair care products, shampoo, a comb, a hair brush, and some feminine hygiene products.

"Ya fool, why would you risk your life for dat?" she asked as a tear threatened to fall from her beautiful eyes. "Why would you..."

Taken off guard, before she could complete her sentence, Jesse grabbed her gently by the chin and pulled her face closer to him and gave her the most passionate kiss he could muster. Pulling away from what felt like minutes, but what was more like seconds, he looked at her and saw that she looked like a deer caught in headlights.

Knowing that he probably made a fool out of himself and that maybe he had misread her feelings, she seemed to snap out of her daze and after a moment she kissed him back. It lacked the passion that his had and her lips only touched his for three seconds, but that spark was there, followed by a slap.

"Oww! What was that for?" he yelped as he rubbed his face. It felt like she put some Slayer strength behind that.

"For being foolish."

'And for scaring me.' she added silently.

Not being able to contain his grin, he took the truck out of park and started to drive. Then something funny hit him that he just had to share.

"Hey Ken..."

"What?" she asked, her arms folded looking out the side window at the scenery as it went by.

"Our breath totally sucks."

A/N I wrote the wal-mart scene almost a year ago for another story that I never got to get to far in. It was actually a alternate universe fic, where xander was a cop in miami and Dawn was his little sister. Demons and other things didn't exist and the zombie apocalypse had just started. I know I suck at writing comedy, but in this chapter I decided to have a little fun. I actually live across the street from a Wal-mart and I used it's design for them to navigate through the store. Me and my best friend said that if a zombie apocalypse were to ever happen that we would raid Wally World and take supplies that we needed. As if any would be left, lol.


	5. Chapter 4 House Hunting

Chapter 4

House Hunting

The rest of the drive was done so in silence, especially when they had gotten to Frazier Park. They saw nothing but madness, everywhere they looked. Broken glass, overturned cars, debris, it looked like the world's biggest riot had taken place.

It was getting late however and they knew better then to be staying out so late at night.

So they decided to head north and deeper into the small city. Coming into a high society gated cove styled community on Lockwood Valley Road, that had the gate wide open, Jesse turned into it slowly. It was 178 acres with fifteen houses on the property, all flat useable land nestled between mountains, a small forest, a blue sky and a lake.

"What are you doing?" Kendra asked as she took in her surroundings.

"I'm finding us a place to stay for tonight." he replied and then he caught her true meaning to her unasked question. "Look the place is gated and as long as there aren't that many walkers here and assuming we can get that gate closed we should be able to stay here for awhile."

Off her look, he ammended. "I'll make a deal with you. We check this place out and if you don't like it, we'll leave. I just want to remind you though that's it's getting late and we shouldn't be out on the streets then."

Giving him the okay, they slowly started to creep down the two lane street. As they passed a few houses all was quiet, with only a few signs of there ever being a disturbance in the neighborhood. Not seeing or hearing any zombies, they knew that they were relatively safe.

"So far so good." Jesse whispered.

As they were about to pass the big house on the top of the hill he spotted something he had been looking for, for weeks. Ignoring it for now he circled around and drove back to the front of the gate.

"What do you think?" he asked, as his fingers tapped the top of the steering wheel.

"I tink this place would be easy to defend and fortify." she said enthusiastically. "All we have to do is close dis gate and clean out a house and any other house dat might have geeks in it."

"I already have a house picked out." he said as he opened the door to the truck and got out. "Now let's concentrate on getting the gate closed."

As they examined the gate they saw that although the gate closed by electricity, with the added bonus of Kendra's Slayer strength, they managed to get it closed easily enough.

Getting back into the truck, they headed to the house that Jesse had spotted earlier. At Kendra's insistance, they decided to do a perimeter sweep first. Starting at the front of the house, which was boarded up with what he hoped was red paint on the door that read PLEASE FATHER FORGIVE US.

"That's never a good sign." Jesse mumbled to himself.

Now knowing that there would be something grim inside, they circled the house and peered in a window and saw an empty kitchen. Continuing on to the other side of the house they gazed into the window... and nearly threw up at what they saw inside.

It was a family laying sprawled on the floor of the den. Their faces turning dark and grim they saw that they were all shot in the head, with flies and all manners of bugs crawling on thier bodies.

Looking up from them they saw a man, long dead, with a shotgun dangling loosely from his hands. He was sitting on a couch with the back of his head blown off and brown blood splattered on the wall behind him.

"Maybe we should choose anodder house." Kendra said as she backed away from the window.

"I...I chose this one because it looks like it's the only one with a set of generators." he said startled himself. "It'll get dark soon, so we need to take these bodies out and burn them. Then we'll unload our stuff and get settled in."

After sometime they took out the bodies and stacked them up in the backyard. Gathering some wood and dousing them with a little lighter fluid, he lit a match and threw it at him. Not holding it in any longer, Jesse threw up, but not out of disgust but the sheer fact of how easy this was getting to be.

Sensing his discomfort, Kendra lightly squeezed his hand in support. Squeezing back he held her hand a moment longer then she was comfortable with and she suddenly jerked away from him.

Watching her walk away, he suddenly looked back at the bodies. "I'm sorry this happened to you." he whispered as he went to the truck and got the canister of gas.

Checking one of the generators he saw that it was completely empty. He put a smile on his face however as he checked the other one and saw that it was half full. Filling it up with the rest of the gas he had he walked to the back of the house. Letting out a much needed breath, he looked out at the lake. It just seemed so peaceful. It was if the world hadn't gone to hell at all. Snapping back to reality he cut on the generator and started to walk towards the truck.

After a couple of hours after unloading the truck night descended and seeing what they had, Kendra started to explore the house as Jesse mustered up some courage to go back into the den. He was surprised that even though the smell of death had spread to the rest of the house, it wasn't as bad as it was before they had removed the bodies.

'Or maybe I'm just getting used to the smell?' he thought to himself. 'God, I hate this world.'

Forgetting about that for now he opened one of the windows a crack to let some fresh air in. Not to draw to much attention to the house, they used sheets to cover up the large windows of the house and they made sure to get good use out of the the dimmer switches.

Putting on some yellow rubber gloves he gathered some bleach and other cleaning materials and started to clean the room. He was at-least thankful that these people had hardwood floors or he would have never gotten the blood up.

Hearing the den's double doors open, he jumped a little, but relaxed as he saw that it was Kendra.

"I'm sorry if I startled ya."

"It's okay." he said as he started back to cleaning.

"I checked every room of dis house and I didn't see anything unusual. I also threw out everything in the refrigerator because it spoiled." she went on. Not getting an answer from him she tried another way. "Do you need any help?"

"NO! I mean no I got this."

"O...okay." she said as she turned to leave. "I'll see about getting us something to eat."

"Kendra wait." Jesse said as she turned around and looked into his eyes. "I... I'm almost done here. I'll help you fix us something to eat and then I wanted to talk to you about some stuff."

"I'd like dat." she smiled thinly, as she walked out of the room.

Smiling himself he went right back to his grisly task, only for the silence to be shattered as he heard Kendra yell his name. Yanking off his yellow rubber gloves he picked up his baseball bat and tracked her voice into the kitchen.

As he skidded to a stop in front of her, he nervously looked around, his knuckles turning white as they gripped the bat.

"What's going on... where are they."

"We're not in any danger." Kendra told him, a hint of excitement in her voice. Taking his hand she put it under the water she had running in the kitchen's double sided sink.

"Ow!" he yelped as he jerked his hand back. "That water is scoulding hot."

As soon as he said that his eyes went wide and he looked at his partner. Seeing the glee in her eyes he knew that she was thinking the same thing.

* * *

Walking into the mansion's Master bedroom the two stood in awe at how big and expensive everything looked. Ignoring it for now they went into the bathroom and gave each other a look.

Going into the black and chrome standing shower, Jesse turned the handle. Putting his hand under the water he waited for a few seconds before he smiled and looked at Kendra.

"The gas pilot is still lit."

* * *

Wearing robes and basking in the aftermath of the first shower they had in a long time, Kendra and Jesse went into seperate rooms to get changed into the clothes Jesse had gotten them at Wal-Mart.

She wore some nice jeans, that fit a little snug, and a nice striped black and white shirt. He on the other hand wore a pair of khaki's and a plain black t-shirt. Their stomach's grumbling, they went into the kitchen to fix something to eat. For the first time in a long time they had felt clean... they had felt human.

Going over their food supply, according to Kendra, with just the two of them they had enough for maybe a month. Trusting her logic, she gave him a can of vienna and crackers to still his palet as she made them some soup with ramen noodles and a couple cans of Campbell's soup.

For the first time in well.. he couldn't really remember when he was able to eat till he was full. He had asked her how she became so good at cooking and she had told him that she had cooked for her Watcher, Mr. Zabuto for years.

As they sat in the living room together, finishing off what was left in their bowls he looked at her and then looked away. Doing it again she caught him that time and the two stared at each other for a moment. It was Kendra who broke the silence though.

"I...I wanted to know... I wanted to know why you kissed me?"

It was Jesse's turn to look like a deer caught in headlights when he heard that question. Shaking fear out of his mind he knew he couldn't play this game anymore. He couldn't be that same loser that never spoke to Cordelia in high school. The world just ended for Christ's sake. What did he have to lose.

"Because I always wanted too." he replied after a full minute of inner debating and silence.

"I... why?"

"Kendra I don't know what you see when you look in the mirror." he said looking up to meet her gaze. "But you're one of the most beautiful women, I've ever met in my life."

By that time her cheeks were a beet red.

"You're everything I could ever fantasize about in a woman." he went on, before he could lose his nerve. "You're strong, you're smart, beautiful, you're... a great kisser. The world fell apart and I still can't really think of my family or friends that I lost. All I can think about is you."

As he started to inch closer to her, she scooted back some. She was in a need of space. Feeling dejected and like his heart was crushed he was about to stand and walk out of the room, until she finally spoke.

"I... I was never allowed to talk to boys." she admitted as he gave her a look. "Me Watcher was very strict. I admit dat I have feelings for you, but... I just need time to... to understand them." she said at a lost for words.

"I understand.. you just need your space." Jesse replied, feeling a little better. "But just remember something, I might be the last guy on earth now."

As they shared a smile, Kendra did remember something else that she wanted to ask him.

"What did you really get at, Wal-Mart when you went back into the store?"

Before he could answer her question the strangest thing happened next. Someone knocked on the front door.


	6. Chapter 5 What Willow Said

Chapter 5

What Willow Said

Heart pounding, Jesse thought he had lost his mind. Looking over at Kendra, who looked equally as nervous as he did, he knew that she must have heard it too. Not really knowing what to do they heard it again. It was the same timid knock as before.

Grabbing her crossbow, Kendra tiptoed to the door, followed closely by Jesse of whom had grabbed his Colt. Leaning over behind her, he looked out of the doors peep hole, before looking down at Kendra confused.

"It's a woman." he mouthed.

"Stand back." she told him as she threw open the door.

As she did, it seemed to startle the black woman on the other side of the door, as she jumped a little. She seemed to look a little disheveled and she was only about an inch taller then Kendra. The woman could pass for thirty five years of age, but looking deeper in her eyes, Kendra could tell that there was a wisdom to them. A wisdom that only a much older woman could carry.

"Don't shoot!" she shouted as she saw the gun and threw her hands up.

"Who are you?" Jesse asked.

"My name is Lexie." she replied, swallowing a lump in her throat. "Dr. Lexie Carver."

* * *

Lexie sat on the couch eating a bowl of Kendra's soup, as both of the young adults eyed her evenly.

"I haven't had anything good to eat in awhile." Lexie started as she placed her now empty bowl on the table. "It was delicious."

"Tank you." was all Kendra said in return.

"Alright let's just get down to business." Jesse said. The suspense was killing him. "Where did you come from?"

"I actually live three houses down from you."

"We've been here all day. Why are you just now coming down here to show your face?"

"Because I didn't know if you were friendly or some kinda bandits or something." she reasoned. "I tried closing that gate since this outbreak happened but I just wasn't strong enough. You two managed to close it and I saw that you got the power to work in this house so I knew you were staying."

"So you just decided to come and say hi?"

"In a manner of speaking... yes."

"So you've been here for almost an entire year?" Kendra spoke up, adding to the conversation.

"I moved here from Salem Massachusetts about eleven months ago because I accepted a job as Chief of Staff at Frazier Park Hospital." as she said that she visibly started to shaken up a bit. "My husband was... was supposed to meet me up here with our son. He called me while I was at work one day and I heard a loud crash and him and my son screaming... I knew that they couldn't have made it."

"My God."

"I'm... I'm sorry."

As that was said the group sat there in silence for a few minutes. Clearing her throat, Kendra needed to know one more thing.

"Have you ever tried to leave?"

"After what I saw on the news before they stopped broadcasting there was no way I was going to leave here. I used to be a cop some years back but I'm still no fighter."

"But you lived this long on your own." Jesse said trying to cheer her up. "That sounds like a hell of a fighter to me. How'd you do that anyway?"

"Well after everything basically went to hell all the families except me and two other couples left for L.A. to go to the CDC center."

"Why didn't you go with them?" Kendra asked.

"Haven't you guys ever seen a zombie movie before?" she asked as they all shared a laugh.

"Anyway, me and the other couples broke into the houses of the people who left and we all took the food and what medicine they left and shared it. Everything was going well for the first couple of months, but since things were quiet one of the couples left and we never heard from them again. Another month later Jerald and Elizabeth... oh God what they did to those babies in this house." she said as she started to weep again.

Excusing himself, after she seemed to calm down Jesse grabbed Kendra by the hand and took her inside of the hallway.

"So what do you think?" he whispered.

"About what?"

"About making her a part of our group." seeing that she wasn't to keen on the idea, he went on. "Look I know she's not much of a fighter, but you trained me right?"

"And look how dat turned out." she joked.

"Hey!" he said in mock offense.

"I already know what you're going to say and you're right we won't leave her alone. Plus she's a doctor."

"So you decided to stay here?" he asked with a smile.

"I'd be a fool if I said no to dis place." she said looking around. "This covers the five basic necessities in life. Food, water, shelter, fire and security."

"Well me and Ken talked it over." Jesse said as he walked back into the living room. "We want you to stay with us in this house. If you want in the morning we can go to your house and get some of your stuff."

"That would be great... all I would need would be some clothes, some books, and a few other nicknaks."

"Well today just gets better and better." Jesse said with a big grin.

"Why do you say, dat?" Kendra asked.

"Because now I have two beautiful women surrounding me."

Lexie sat back and watched the easy back and forth between the two. She could tell that there was a blossoming love about to happen, even as Kendra threw a pillow at her companions head.

"So tell me about you two. How did the both of you meet?"

"Believe me lady if we told you, you'd think we were nuts."

"The world has been taken over by flesh eating zombies." Lexie said as she gave him a look. "I'd believe you if you told me a frog could fart out gold. Now sit and tell me about what happened to the world and more importantly about you two."

After telling her all about dying and then finding each other in Sunnydale and watching all of his Romero movies, he went on to tell her about Willow. Her and a vampire by the name of Spike were all that were left of the Sunnydale residents. It seemed that in the years that he and Kendra were dead, the government had been experimenting with demons and had created a demon/human hybrid by the name of Adam.

Some months before Buffy had defeated the cyborg it had done experiments of it's own on demons and humans alike. It infected the one's it tested with an experimental virus that laid dormant inside of them. Thinking that everything was okay, they went from place to place and in a matter of four months the mystery virus had spread globally. And worse yet it could infect people and demons.

On the first two weeks of the outbreak, since Sunnydale was the hotbed of it all, Buffy got overwhelmed and a group of zombies caught her off guard, dragged her in her house and turned her. The rest of the city fell within forty eight hours and all that was left standing was Spike, Tara, Willow, and an old veitnam vet, who hid out in an underground bunker after hearing about the apocalypse. Before he was killed himself, he taught Willow how to defend herself and use several guns.

Still not being able to put Buffy down, Willow and Tara bound the virus carrying Slayer to her house with magick so that she could never leave. Sensing that magick itself was dying she used most of the last of her power to resurrect a Slayer and an old friend. To go along with the boundaries of the spell she couldn't say who the people were that she wanted to resurrect by name.

The spell didn't turn out like Willow wanted however, because she had wanted to bring back Xander and Buffy. She didn't calculate that Xander wasn't the only friend that she had ever lost and that technically Buffy was still alive, via the walking dead.

As he started to finish his story and telling her that they had no choice but to leave Sunnydale, Lexie just sat back and watched them. Then she did something that neither of them expected. She laughed.

"You've got to be kidding me." she said through fits of laughs. "Demons... vampires... you... you are kidding right?" she asked looking between them.

She sobered up however as Kendra told her a story that Jesse had heard once himself from her.

"De world is older then you know..."

* * *

As promised the next day, Jesse helped Lexie bring some of her stuff to the big house. Neither of them got much sleep that night, but the Doctor wanted to prove her worth by showing them and more importantly herself that she could handle her own.

Coming out to a street that they had seen several zombies on the day before, Lexie got out of the truck wearing gloves, arm guards, shin guards and wielding a baseball bat. With Jesse and Kendra trailing behind her, with weapons of their own, they saw a Walker sitting on the curb. It was slumped up against a telephone pole in a deep stupor.

As she approached it the Walker roused and saw them coming. Before he could stand, Lexie was on him. Without pause she split it's skull with a few brutal blows of her bat.

The Walker collapsed, twitching violently on the ground for a few seconds before going still. Breathing hard, she thought about hat she had just done and honestly it was very therapeutic for her. She knew that she couldn't kill the monster that had taken her family away, but this was the next best thing.

"So do you tink she's one of us yet?" Kendra whispered over to Jesse, who grinned back in return.

"Not yet." he replied as Lexie started to vomit on the warm pavement. "Now she is."

A/N There's actually more to the story about Adam spreading the virus that will be told later in the story.


	7. Chapter 6 If Hell Don't Want You

Chapter 6

If Hell Don't Want You

It had been nearly two months since Lexie had become a part of the team. She was getting back in the mode of using a gun again, since her days of being a police officer, but she was doing better with blunt weapons. Since they now had a third person and with a better plan by Kendra they had went back to Wal-Mart and had nearly gotten all the food, that was still good, that the store had to offer. Even though there were other stores in the small city they didn't dare go to them out of fear that they would get over run. Since Wal-Mart was on the outskirts of the city it had to be a one stop shop, for now atleast.

While Lexie gathered the food, Jesse and Kendra had taken care of the walkers that were left inside. Since the ones that had chased them out of the store on their first run, it had left only fifteen in the store of which the duo quickly took care of.

In order to grow their own food Lexie suggested that they get stuff from the garden center and seeds. Knowing that he would need things to use to fix on his truck and Lexie's Navigator, the three of them dumped their supplies in their vehicles before heading over to the automotives section.

Hearing a commotion behind her, Kendra whirled around and rolled her eyes as she saw Jesse desperately grappling with a heavy black zombie, wearing a bloody and oily mechanics uniform.

'What is it with dis, boy?' she thought to herself, even as she ran towards them.

Grabbing it from around the waist she tossed the thing off of him, making it fall to the floor hard. Getting up it started to make a guttural growl before Kendra shot it in the head with a bolt.

"Why are you always getting into trouble?" she asked as he ignored her and looked down at the walker.

"Kendra do you see that?"

"See what?" she asked as she leaned down to examine the walker herself. Looking at his teeth she saw that his canines were extending out of it's mouth. Almost as if it were a vampire.

Suddenly the things eyes opened, glowing red and his face morphed into that of a strange variation of a vampire. Before Kendra could react it jumped up, it's jaws now snapping at her.

Too late to grab a bolt it pounced on her. Reacting Jesse ran forward, only to slip on some slimy substance on the floor. Losing his balance, he fell hard to the floor, hitting his head.

With all the luck in the world, in that moment, Lexie kicked the side of the things head. As it went rolling and growling off of the Slayer, she sat up and loaded a bolt, just as Jesse shot his colt at the things chest. As the bullet exploded out of it's back and where it's heart was, it exploded into ashes.

Shocked at what had just happened, they all looked at each other. It was Lexie however that spoke first.

"What the hell was that?"

* * *

As the group headed home, their good mood from before seemed to have evaporated. After seeing that thing at Wal-Mart it just seemed to disturb Lexie, but it was downright terrifying to the other two.

"So is anybody gonna explain to me what the hell that thing was back there?" Lexie asked, as she looked between the two. "Was that some kind of demon?"

"It's best not to tink about that thing at all." Kendra said, not turning around to look at her.

"Hey, I don't know what's up with you two, but I'm trying to survive here too you know!" she spoke up a little louder then she had planned. "So if you know what that thing was, you should tell me. Knowledge of what's ahead is very important."

As she said that, both of them gave each other a look. Reluctantly giving each other a nod, it was Jesse of whom started to tell her what was going on.

"Fine, Doc. You're right." he started. "You have a right to know. That thing... or things like it are the reason we had to leave Sunnydale."

"What...?"

"The last day we were in Sunnydale, Me, Kendra, Spike, Tara, and Willow had planned on leaving the city together." he went on. "Me and Ken had found the Silverado and loaded it up with some supplies. We had just gotten back to Willow's house to let her know that we were ready when those things attacked. Willow called them Night Stalkers. They are a Zombie/Vampire hybrid. There had to be dozens of them surrounding the house and believe me they didn't need an invitation to get in."

As he was saying this, Lexie's breath caught. She knew that there was something big coming along to his story.

"Willow grabbed Tara's hand and they used the last of their magick and pushed me and Ken back in the truck. Ken hit her head and was knocked unconcious, so I had to put her in the truck. Willow tried to get Tara to come with us but she wouldn't leave her side. I was forced to watch... watch those things tear them apart."

"And I've felt guilty about dat day every since." Kendra added. "It is the Slayer's duty to die protecting the innocent."

"But you were knocked uncon..." at Kendra's look, Lexie closed her mouth. These two were obviously suffering and there was nothing she could do for them right now. But they were her friends and this was going to be brought up again.

* * *

Deciding to have something fresh to eat today, Lexie and Jesse sat down by the lake behind the house to fish. Sharing a laugh at the small fish that Jesse had caught, he suddenly sobered up as he cast his reel out again.

"Hey Doc, you mind if I ask you a question?" he asked as he sat down beside her on the lawn chairs they had found.

"Yeah, sure." Lexie replied, seeing how serious he seemed now. "You know you can ask me anything."

"How... how do you know when you're in love?"

Trying not to smile so hard, she decided to play this evenly. "Well when you look at Kendra what do you feel?"

"Who said I was talking about, Kendra?" he asked with a weak smile. "You know I had my eyes on you, Doc."

"Ha ha ha." she replied dryly as she gave him a look.

"I...I feel like I can't breathe unless she's around and... and my heart skips a beat when I look into her eyes."

"That's the same way I felt about, Abe." she said aloud, caught in thought as she touched him on the shoulder. "Yeah, boy you caught the love bug."

"And I'm about to dive head first into the disease." he said as he reached into his pocket and took out a small black box. Opening it he showed Lexie a beautiful gold and diamond engagement ring. "I got this the first day me and Kendra broke into, Wal-Mart."

"Wow...I... just wow." Lexie said as she eyed him evenly. "I know you love her, but don't you think you're rushing things a little?"

"I'm going to ask her one of these days when I think it's right. The way I see it is like this." he said as he shut the box and placed it back into his pocket. "This world is dying and this might be the last of us. And in the end all I can offer Kendra is my heart and she can keep it to the end of my days. Even if it is gonna be short and brutal."

Seeing that she had hurt his feelings, she reached out and was about to say something encouraging when a drop of rain hit her hand. Looking up she saw that the sky had quickly turned dark. Seeing it too, thunder suddenly broke and a shower of rain pelted down so hard they could barely see anything.

"Wooo!" Lexie shouted, as she started to get drenched.

"We better get back inside." Jesse said gathering their gear as the older woman got the bucket of fish.

* * *

Jesse stood on the balcony of the mansion after he and the others had eaten their meal. He had thought about what Lexie had said and maybe she was right. He wasn't going to ask Kendra to marry him tomorrow but he planned on it one day.

Letting out a sigh, he looked out over the other side of the lake and the pounding rain made it impossible to tell but he could have sworn he saw someone standing out in the rain.

Keeping his eyes focused, he did indeed see a man standing out in the rain. He couldn't tell if it was a zombie or just a regular man so he bit down on his urge to call out to him. And after what he saw next he was glad he didn't.

The man... no things head suddenly went slack. It dropped back and it's mouth opened and small pink tentacles started to come out of his mouth, lapping up the water. Jesse turned away in horror, a gagging noise coming from his mouth.

It was a hideous and sickening sight and just as Jesse was about to go back into the house to tell the others, more tentacles emerged from the things eye sockets, nose and mouth. The long worm like things slapped about his face, thriving in the down pour. And then it suddenly locked eyes with Jesse.


	8. Chapter 7 As You Were

Chapter 7

As You Were

"Are you sure of what you saw?" Kendra asked, crossbow in hand as she and Lexie joined him on the balcony.

"Ken, I'm telling you I wasn't seeing things." he replied shakily.

"I know for a fact that, that's what Jesse saw." Lexie spoke up as she started to back away from them and go back into the house.

Following her line of vision they looked across the lake and saw ten bald headed demons, wearing brown ceremonial robes looking at them.

"Damn, get down!" Jesse said in a whispered yell.

As they dropped down to the ground, Lexie looked over at Jesse. "Do you think they saw us?"

In answer to her question the gang heard a soft thumping noise. Looking up in unison, they saw one of the demon men standing on the railing of the balcony, silently watching them with dark red eyes.

His face was nothing more then a demonic visage. Ghostly white flesh so devoid of pigment they could see the blue and purple veins beneath the surface. His eyes were an unearthly dark red /grey and white. He was also completely hairless-nothing on his face, no brows, no facial hair and his lips were a deep ruby red.

"What the..."

Not waiting for Jesse to finish his sentence, Kendra stood to her feet as the thing jumped onto the balcony with them. In a hard charge they collided and both of them went over the railing.

"Kendra!" Jesse shouted as more of them poured over the lip of the balcony. "Shit!" he said pulling out his colt and started shooting into the crowd. "Doc get to the bedroom and get the backpacks!"

As he said that Lexie ran towards the bedroom and just as she touched her gun one of the things jumped on her from behind. As the thing started to sprout pink tentacles out of it's face, Lexie cried thinking that this was the end.

That was until Jesse's shoe connected with the side of it's head. The demon went tumbling off, a snarl on it's lips. Quickly getting to her feet, she pulled up her weapon just as Jesse loaded bullets into his gun with a quick loader. Making sure Lexie was okay, he looked up to see that the thing was already struggling back to his feet. As more tentacles came out of it's face they let loose with a barrage of bullets that dropped the thing down like a ton of bricks. Green blood showering the wall behind it.

"Let's get the hell out of here." she said as they started to walk towards the door.

"We have to get, Kendra."

As he said that another creature suddenly appeared in the bedroom doorway. It was still bald like the others but it looked to be a female. Staggering into the room, Lexie struggled with her holster trying to free her hand gun. Suddenly, she felt something on her leg. Looking down it was the first one they had shot clutching at her ankle. It pulled itself closer, it's mouth open.

She tried to pull away, but fell onto the floor, crashing over a table and lamp. She then tried to crawl away, but the frail demon kept its hold and dragged along behind her, even as she cursed herself for not being able to free her pistol.

Jesse flung all his weight against the female demon and she flew against a wall, but bounced back immediately. With a snarl she attacked again. Bringing up his gun he fired a slug, the hot lead tearing through the woman's chest. To his dismay however it didn't stop her onslaught. Another shot ripped through her neck. Still she came.

From the floor Lexie managed to level off her pistol. She fired at the ghoulish head which drew closer to her leg. The thing's skull blew open and its grasp relaxed. Shaking violently, her arm and gun stayed in the air, still poised, as she fired again...and again...and again.

"Lexie! Lexie!" Jesse shouted finally getting her attention.

Breathing heavily she suddenly snapped out of it and accepted the hand that he was offering. Taking it she shook the demons hand off of her ankle and stood to her feet. Running out of the room, they saw that they would be routed if they went towards the back of the house, so they went towards the front and opened the door. Only for a Heckler & Koch Mark 23 pistol to be shoved into their face.

As the tall sandy blond haired man looked at him, he suddenly aimed his gun past them and shot the demon in the head that was quickly coming up behind them. Before Jesse could ask who he was, some army officers ran past him and into the house killing off all of the demons they came into contact with.

"I'm sorry to disturb you folks." the man said as a helicopter zoomed overhead. It's search light framing them in an almost heavenly glow. "But my name is, Captain Riley Finn. Do you mind if me and my men come in?"

* * *

"Thank you for letting me and my men in." Captain Finn said as his men swarmed through the house looking for any sign of trouble.

"Well it's not like we had much of a choice." Jesse replied.

"Touche'." Finn said with a smile as one of his men walked quickly up to him. "We heard gunshots and saw demons on the move so we decided to help."

"The house is clear, sir."

"Jesse." they heard Kendra say with a hint of pain in her voice as she walked into the room.

Turning Jesse saw that she had a little blood drooling out of her mouth and a few cuts and bruises, but other then that she was fine. Giving her a hug, she suddenly winced.

"Sorry."

"Oh dear, let me treat those wounds." Lexie said as she guided Kendra to the sofa and got a medkit.

"Are you a doctor?" Riley asked.

"Yeah... yeah I am." Lexie said as she went back to treating Kendra's wounds.

"If you don't mind could you treat some others?" Riley asked. "We picked up some civilians on our way to California."

"Yeah, bring them in."

"Who are you guys?" Jesse asked as he heard the whine of the helicopter die.

"As far as I know we're what's left of the U.S. army." Finn said as he shared a look with one of his men of whom went outside to get the others.

As they walked into the room, Riley was about to make introductions until Kendra recognized someone in the group.

"Don't I know you?" she asked as she walked up to a short man with red spiky hair.

Giving her a look, he remembered her from somewhere too. Then it hit him.

"Isn't your name, Kendra?" he asked. "I thought you died?"

"I got better."

"You died?" one of Finn's officers asked. "You better not be a demon."

"No, I'm de opposite of a demon. I'm the Slayer."

"The Slayer?" Finn asked as there was a murmuring throughout the room. "Is Buffy..."

"Everybody just calm down." a tall, slender woman from Finn's group said as she got inbetween them. "We'll start with introductions first and then you two can explain how you know each other." she said as she looked to Riley. "Then we can find out what happened to everybody."

With that said Riley reintroduced himself and then his officers, of whom were an elite demon hunting unit called Red Squad. The woman who had calmed everyone down was his wife Sgt. Samantha Finn. The man who had pulled his gun on them was Commander Graham Miller and the other two were his pilot ensign Michelle Hernandez and ensign Charles Donovan.

The handful of civilians were two teenaged girls named Caridad and Alexandria, a middle aged man named Tom Wellington, and the man that Kendra knew named Daniel "Oz" Osbourne.

After the introductions were given out, Oz explained that he had only met Kendra briefly when she had first came to Sunnydale. He had also told them that later on, through Willow he had found out that Kendra was killed by a vampiress named Drusilla.

In turn Kendra told them about her and Jesse's resurrection and then of the fate of Willow and Sunnydale itself.

"So Buffy is..."

"I'm sorry." Kendra told Riley. "From what Willow told us she fought until her last breath."

"So what do we do now?" Graham asked. "We were stuck in Brazil for over a year and our plan to get to Sunnydale and back up the Slayer is ruined."

"But we still have a Slayer." Samantha spoke up as she shared a look with Kendra. "I say we back her up and make our way to the CDC in Los Angeles."

"The CD..."

"When we reached the states we kept getting an automated audio transmission." Riley said cutting Kendra off. "We found out that there's only two CDC locations broadcasting, but the one in Atlanta stopped broadcasting some time ago, so we came here, since we were on our way to California anyway."

"You said that the transmission was automated though?" Jesse asked as he started to pace. At Riley's nod, he continued. "So what makes you think that those people are even still alive?"

"That's right." Lexie piped in. "The residents that used to live here went to the CDC and they never came back."

"Because they are the only hope that we have." Samantha replied for Riley as they shared a look. "The government in and of itself has fallen, radio intelligence with other countries have stopped and the President is dead. Even what few contacts we had in the government and in the Initiative are gone."

"The Initiative?" Jesse asked accusingly as he stood to his feet. "This mess is all of your fault."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Graham asked angrily. "We just saved your ass."

Calming down just a little, Jesse relayed the story Willow had told them about the Initiative and Adam to the group.

"No...no that can't be true." Riley said out loud. 'Maybe all of those rumors about population control by the government were true. But I doubt that this is what they had in mind.'

"Excuse me." the Dominican teen known as Caridad said as she approached the group after a moment of silence. "But we've been on the move for days and we barely had anything to eat and..."

"Oh God I didn't even think to ask you guys about that." Jesse said pointingly talking to the survivors and not to the soldiers. "We have plenty of stuff for you guys to eat in the kitchen. Help yourself. When you're done you can have a hot shower and we'll help you find a room to sleep in tonight."

"Real food and a hot shower?" Alexandria said to Caridad as Lexie led them and the other survivors into the kitchen. "I think we're in heaven."

"So does that invitation go for the rest of us?" Riley asked, looking pointingly to Kendra of whom seemed less hostile, and then to Jesse.

"I don't know. You're the one with the big guns so you tell me." Jesse said looking towards all of the soldiers.

"You know this is a pretty nice set up." Graham said looking around the house. "How'd you and your girlfriend come about claiming this place."

"Squatter's rights." Jesse said through gritted teeth. He was so hating this Graham guy all ready.

Seeing that a fight was coming Riley decided to intervene. "Look, we aren't the bad guys here. I admit that me and Graham were apart of the Initiative some time ago but after we found out what they were doing with Adam we left. And after what you told us he did, we're glad that we did."

"We're not going to do any of that Martial law crap and try to take over things." Samantha added. "We can be helpful and I think we proved that tonight. All we want is a place to hold up until we can get our bearings. We came a long way and as far as we know we might be the last dregs of humanity."

As she said that, Jesse studied each of their faces and he saw how young they were. They couldn't have been that much older then him and Ken and he couldn't imagine what they had been through in the last year that this had been going on. He could only imagine the people they had seen die or lost both in the army and their families. Maybe that's why that guy Graham was such an asshole. As Kendra gave his hand a gentle squeeze, his decision was made.

"Alright, you can stay." Jesse said as a breath of relief went through the house. "Just help us clear out all of these bodies and I'll show you guys where you can sleep tonight."

As soon as he said that Graham's stomach growled loudly, making everyone look over at him. Not knowing why but Jesse started to laugh at that and it was infectious because the whole group was laughing now. Even Kendra and Oz.

"Don't worry little guy." Jesse said as he fought off the laughter and looked at the slightly older man's stomach. "We'll feed you too."

A/N The backpacks Jesse was referring to were his idea. They have a med-kit in them, three days worth of food, a blunt weapon, a metal flint, a very small cache of ammo, and two bottles of water in them. It was in case the house ever got overrun and they needed to split really fast.


	9. Chapter 8 If We Don't Have Hope

Reader Discretion is advised. This chapter deals with the subject matter of suicide. You've been warned.

Chapter 8

If We Don't Have Hope

The sun rose over the still city. Light swept across one of the buildings in the housing community, chasing shadows away. Another building came to life, the sun's rays reflected blindingly off the glass.

As Riley made his way through the backyard, he passed the aftermath of the attack. He stared at the group before him as if they were apart of some sort of grotesque assembly line.

Jesse and Graham added wood and brush high for a funeral pyre. Their previous anger towards each other gone. Kendra dragged a demon to the pyre and dropped it at Samantha's feet. Samantha swung a pickaxe and shattered the demon's skull. Jesse and Graham then stepped forward, lifted the robed demon, swung it by the head and feet and tossed it onto the fire.

"When you're done, I'd like to talk to you." Riley said to Jesse in passing.

After about another fifteen minutes of stacking and burning the bodies, Jesse and the others went back into the house and saw Riley and the others sitting in the kitchen eating breakfast and waiting on them.

Seeing that they were eating some MRE issued powdered eggs, bacon, and a couple of cans of fried Spam he sat down to it anyway.

"Me and Sam were talking last night." Riley started as he finished his food. "We were serious last night when we said that we would help you guys. First to get out of you guys' hair we are gonna all move into the other houses that aren't being used."

"Me and Riley would take a house, the girls would get a house, Mr. Wellington would get his and the others would get one." Samantha added.

"But those other houses don't have power in them."

"That's where I come in." Mr. Weliington said as he spoke up. "Before this... mess started I was an engineer. I was originally thinking that since this town hasn't been looted much that we could try to find some generators, but then there is a problem with finding enough gas to run them. Then I started thinking that if I could find the right materials that I could make some solar panels or at the very least a wind mill."

"Wow you can do that?" Jesse asked, amazed.

"If I find the right materials, yes."

"But that's not it." Riley said getting his attention. "We were thinking about turning one of the houses into a hospital. Lexie is the first real doctor we've come across in a long time and we wanted her to have all the stuff she would need. Medical supplies, lab equipment, the whole works."

"So what are you planning to do?" Kendra asked.

"Before we came here we saw a big moving truck a few miles away." Riley went on. "So we were going to raid the hospital, Lexie told us about and bring everything she needs back here."

Seeing the beginnings of a plan coming together, Jesse suddenly thought about something. "So what, did you guys give up on trying to make it to the CDC?"

"No." Samantha said as she gave Riley a look. "We were actually thinking of going there today. We can take some backroads to get there but it shouldn't take longer then two hours at most."

"Getting that medical equipment and supplies are important too." Jesse said as he thought about the situation. "Maybe me and Kendra should back you up. I hate saying this because I've watched horror movies my whole life, but we should split up our teams. Some of us can go to the CDC to check it out and report back in and the others should go to the hospital to get supplies."

"What about the materials I need for my project?" Wellington asked.

"The supplies we need from the hospital are all there in one place." Jesse reasoned as he ate the last of his bacon. "The supplies you need are probably gonna be spread all over the city. The best thing we can do is wait until we're all back together again and then go out together and get what you need."

With that said they finished their food and went to get cleaned up. As they all met in the living room they decided on their teams. The team heading towards the hospital was going to be Lexie, Graham and Kendra. The team that was going to the CDC was going to be Jesse, Riley, Ensign Donovan and surprisingly Oz of whom didn't want to be cooped up in the house. Samantha and Hernandez were going to stay behind and watch the house aswell as the other survivors. Their teams assembled they gathered the gear they needed and left the house.

* * *

It had taken Jesse and the others a little longer then they expected to get to the CDC. About an hour longer to be exact because of the traffic jam from hell, when they had went down a side road. Pushing several cars out of the way and killing a few walkers they were on their way again. Seeing a big white building off in the distance they smiled until they got closer to it.

"Oh my God!" Jesse mumbled to himself as he and Riley peered through his windshield.

The Silverado pulled to a stop and Jesse stepped out of his truck. Then one by one, the rest of them crawled out of it. They just stood there, in a line, their mouths opened, as they took in an urban battlefield.

Dead Soldiers, shot in the head, some eaten, filled the street and lined the steps of the CDC. They had obviously went hand-to-hand with the countless walkers that filled the street. It was a sick massacre on both sides.

A pile of corpses blocked the main entrance and Riley and Ensign Donovan gave each other a look that seemed to say, what now. Suddenly, Riley heard a noise next to him and as he looked down he saw a soldier, now a walker, reaching out toward Donovan. The others jumped back and Riley pulled his weapon, aimed a shot, but BAM!

Jesse fired first. Looking up he saw that Jesse was giving him an accusing look. Knowing that he couldn't have been wrong about this place, Riley tried the main entrance. And to his dismay, it was locked. Seeing an intercom panel, he pressed a few buttons, and realized that it was dead. Not giving up he then pounded on the door. A long moment of pause. No response. There wasn't anybody here.

Another long moment passed and Red Squad looked around taking in their new situation. The door was locked and they were surrounded by dead soldiers. Now panic started to set in.

"You led us here." Jesse said angrily meeting Riley's gaze. "What the hell were you thinking? We should've just went with the others to get stuff for the house."

"He made a call." Donovan spoke up, taking up for his commanding officer. "We had to come here and make sure."

"Make sure of what?" Jesse asked. "Make sure we all got killed?"

As the two started to bicker, Riley looked around and saw a surveillance camera moving. Curiosity getting the better of him, he walked up and looked directly into the camera.

"Ummm, guys." Oz said as he got their attention. Looking at him and then what he was looking at, they saw almost two dozen zombies shambling towards them. They were quickly being surrounded.

As quickly as they started to shoot into the crowd, the doors to the CDC suddenly went up. As the light from the inside of the building hit them, they turned around and saw an older woman in her late forties wearing a white lab coat.

"Quickly come inside!" she yelled as she ducked back into the building. Not having to be told twice, Riley shot a few more bullets at the ghouls, before they ducked inside too. The zombies pounding on the door as it closed behind them.

* * *

As the U- Haul truck came along to the hospital and stopped at the loading dock, the group inside it struggled not to vomit. Bodies, upon bodies, upon bodies were hastily wrapped in white sheets and stacked like firewood along the hospital wall. There had to be hundreds of them.

Blots of long dried blood dotted the sheets, leaving no doubt that they were shot in the head. It was depressing that none of these people had atleast had a funeral and were dumped outside like garbage waiting for pickup.

And to prove that point they slowly walked by a couple of dump trucks, sitting silently by themselves, their load beds filled with sheet wrapped bodies, stacked in layers like sacks of grain.

"Oh God." Lexie said quietly as she started to throw up her breakfast.

"You gotta get yourself together, doc." Graham said as he glanced back at her. "What we see in here might be alot worse then this."

"I know but... God how do you get use to this smell?" even after all her years as a medical professional, she had never smelled something so bad. Now she was really glad she had missed work that day or this could have been her thrown carelessly in a white sheet on the ground.

Ignoring her question the group moved on with Graham taking lead, Kendra in the middle and Lexie, trailing behind them. Albeit quickly. Walking up the steps of the docks, Graham turned and gave Kendra a signal to get ready, as he opened the door.

Stepping in, he quickly looked around before he held the door open, for Kendra and Lexie to walk in. As they did, he let the door close behind him, only for them now to be trapped in pitch black darkness. Taking a glow stick out of his pack, he slapped it on his leg twice until the stairwell was bathed in green light.

Moving forward, the staircase seemed like a black cavernous void yawning before him. And that's when he smelled it. The stench of death. Trying to ignore it, they started to walk up the railing and caught a direct whiff of the stench below.

"What is dat?" Kendra asked, knowing what the answer was.

Curiosity getting the better of him, as they reached the top of the stairwell, Graham peered over the railing. There was nothing but inky blackness below, the light from the glow stick not reaching.

"I have some more of these." he said as he turned to Kendra and then leaned over the railing and dropped the stick.

As all three of them watched as it dropped, they saw as it smacked a corpses cheek, bounced off of it and landed in front of it's dead eyes.

"Damnit!" Lexie yelped.

Even though the others said nothing they shared her sentiment. And now everything was coming together. When whoever had done this ran out of sheets, time, and manpower, they just started shooting them and dumping them over the railing. Trying to block out images of the hundreds of dead bodies that could be down there, they went through the next door and out of the stairwell.

Coming into a long hallway they saw a group of double doors with a sign that read cafeteria on it. As they got closer they saw that a two-by-four was jammed through the door handles and the handles themselves were chained and padlocked.

Painted hastily on the left door was a message that said "Go away" and on the other side it read "Dead inside." As if sensing that they were there the door heaved slowly outward, pushed from the other side. The two-by-four creaked and the chain went taut as fingers probed through the crack before their eyes.

As those pale white fingers touched on the chain, more hands appeared all up and down the crack of the door. Giving each other a look they headed further down the hallway. Turning a corner they saw a dead nurse laying sprawled in the hallway, visible by the glow of the skylight. She was torn open and the blood on and around her was so old that it had turned dark brown.

"Was dat anybody you knew?" Kendra asked.

"Yeah... I... I think that was Amy McCallister."

"Let's just get what we came to get." Graham commented as he saw more and more dried blood on the walls. Some of it was smeared with a hand print or two in it. And looking closer he saw lots of bullet holes in the walls as well.

* * *

"So you're telling me that all of us are infected?" Riley asked of Dr. Lawson as the group all sat in her lab. Her assistant Reginald passing them out bottles of water.

"Yes... I'm sorry." Lawson replied. "It doesn't matter how you die you'll come back as one of them, just as long as you don't have any brain truama. You see your brain releases all sorts of things like DMT into the body when you die, so when the virus and high levels of chemicals from the brain mix together, you turn. All of the other doctors left when this first happened.. to be with their family's. However me and Reginald stayed behind to try to find a cure."

"Well did you?" Oz asked as he started to scratch at his arm. Honestly he knew in his heart that they probably didn't after witnessing what was outside.

"No." she said at a loss. "Something similar happened in Colorado some years ago. It was in a place called Raccoon City. But this... this is another beast in and of it's own."

"God damnit, Adam!" Jesse said angrily, making Dr. Lawson and Reginald stare at him.

"Adam?" Lawson asked, readjusting her glasses. "How do you know about him?"

"Wait... you know who Adam is?" Riley asked, not noticing that Donovan had sneaked off. "Who are you, really?"

"I worked for the Initiative aswell, Agent Finn." she said as her demeanor suddenly changed. "Before you came along I used to work at Maggie Walsh's side. God that woman was brilliant."

"Did you two..."

"Set this up?" she finished for Riley. "Yes and no."

"Lady I would suggest that you stop talking in riddles." Jesse said, making a show of showing his gun off. To his surprise, she merely laughed at him.

"Boy I've done all I can do and seen all I can see in this life." Lawson went on. "This place is a housing for some of the worlds most dangerous deseases. That's why the higher ups rigged it so it would blow up in case something like this happened. Me and Reginald have been gathering fuel from cars and a secret gas depot this whole year to keep this place running but we were just avoiding the inevitable. In about an hour and a half this place is going to blow up, taking me with it, so believe me when I say your little guns don't scare me."

As she told them that they had just noticed that there was indeed a timer in the room counting down.

"Riley, maybe we should..."

"Not yet. Now answer my question. Is this or is this not your fault?"

"Like I said, yes and no." at his look she ammended. "The virus was actually created to destroy the demon population on earth. That's why the Initiative was capturing demons to see if there was a common virus strain that could be used to kill them. Adam was created so that we could make sure that the virus wouldn't affect humans. We wanted to see if his demon half would die and his human half would stay alive. It was done so that people who somehow had a mixed heritage with a demon could live a normal life, with the demon half of them being dead. We didn't count on five things though. We didn't count on Adam killing Maggie, him stealing information about the secret virus project, him creating the virus, him using Maggie's access codes to have mandatory flu and immunization shots laced as they were sent out with the virus and said virus mutating so that it would kill humans too."

As she finished her story, Riley just stood there in shock. His whole time fighting the good fight for the Initiative was just a lie. He really thought he was doing the right thing by capturing demons, but now to find out that it was just for a experiment that cost the lives of so many people.

POW!

"What the hell was that!" Jesse shouted as the loud noise startled him and made him cut his hand on a glass beaker.

"It was a gun shot." Oz said as they all walked out of the room and into the hallway.

As they got out there they saw that Donovan was laying in a pool of his own blood, him having blown out the back of his head.

"Aw man." Oz simply said.

"He must have done this because we're all infected." Jesse suggested. 'Maybe he has the right idea. What's the point of going on knowing we'll all turn into one of those things?'

"Yeah." Riley commented loosely as he gathered Donovan's dog-tags and rifle as Oz took his handgun out of his dead hand. "Now come on lets go."

"So what you're not going to offer to take me and Reginald with you?" Lawson asked as the group headed for the door. "That's not something that the good guys do."

"The way I see it doc, you and Reginald have exactly one hour." Riley said still walking towards the door. "You and people like you created this hell. Now live and then burn in it."

With a sneer and already accepting death anyway, she watched them go and went back into her lab. Not having anything else to do she turned back to her work. Remembering that Jesse had cut his hand, she took a sample of his blood and put it under the microscope.

"He doesn't have the virus." She said in astonishment. "Maybe I can make a..." and that was all that she got to say as the counter finally counted down and the building started to explode.

A/N I hope this explains what happened to the citizens of Frazier Park to everybody and why there weren't more zombies in the city.


	10. Chapter 9 Dearly Departed

A/N This chapter is rated M and contains thoughts of suicide. Reader discretion is advised.

Chapter 9

Dearly Departed

"We just loaded up the last of the equipment that you wanted, Doc." Graham said as he and Kendra walked back into the hospital's medicine supply room. "What else did you want us to take?"

"Alot of the medicine that I was looking for isn't here." Lexie responded as she turned around and looked at him.

He had a look in his eyes, that seemed to be somewhere between lust and love as his eyes roamed her body, before looking back to her face. Seeing that he was caught, he looked away sheepishly as his cheeks turned a bright pink.

"Kendra could you take those two boxes of meds to the truck?" Lexie asked, not taking her eyes off of the soldier. "Me and Graham are going to go to the downstairs storage to make sure they didn't take the supply of medicine that I need."

"Of course, Lexie." the Jamaican Slayer replied as she picked up the boxes, completely oblivious to the sexual tension that was in the room before leaving.

"I'm a little too old for you, you know." Lexie said as she tried to put a frown on her face and crossed her arms. She wanted to let him down as easily as possible.

To her surprise though, he didn't look away or deny it and started to approach her slowly. Letting his full height be known, it was Lexie who now had to look away.

"Look Doc, I know we just met but the way I see it is we're both single, we're both adults and..." he stopped as he gently stroked her cheek with his finger before placing it under her chin to make her look up at him. "believe me you're not too old."

Lexie had to admit that he was handsome and that it had been awhile since she had any companionship, but the soldier was just too young for her. Plus she didn't know if she was fully over Abe or not. Shaking her head for even entertaining the thought, she lightly slapped the soldier on the chest.

"Come on big guy, let's go and get those meds."

Following up behind her, he smiled to himself as he noticed that she didn't say no. As they made it down to the bottom level storage room, only having to kill two walkers, Lexie had found some things that she needed on the way, before Graham came to the door and opened it. He froze in horror at what he saw on the other side.

"What are you looking..." the words stopping in her throat, Lexie looked around him and saw five naked white skinned things, standing closely together in a shadowed corner of the room. Without even waiting until they had turned around Lexie already knew what they were.

They were Night Stalkers.

Maybe hearing her voice or even hearing their hearts beating, all five of them turned around creepily at the same time, their eyes glowing red and filled with insatiable hunger.

"Shit!" Graham shouted, as the things readied an attack.

Something dark, something terrible filled the biggest ones eyes as it lunged at Graham, the others standing back to let their obvious leader hunt. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Graham pounded him with three bullets. Two in the stomach. One in the shoulder. Blood spattered and the Night Stalker teetered a little, but didn't fall. Knowing that he had him, Graham aimed at its heart and fired, but his weapon clicked empty.

"Oh fuck!" he muttered as he hastily started to load a clip. Then he knew, somehow he just knew this was it. Taking something off his neck he threw it to Lexie, before ordering her to run.

"But what about you?" she asked.

"I'll be right behind you." he said as he finally jammed in the clip. "I'll hold them back for you."

As she ran Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow. Graham aimed at the basement windows causing glass to shatter and a wall of light poured in hitting the other four with an unhealthy dose of the suns radiation.

The skin on their faces started to blister and smoke rose from their skin as they let loose a howl that nearly shook the building. Taking this to his advantage the leader extended his arm. As he concentrated for the briefest of seconds, the muscles and tendons of the forearm thickened and his nails extended, creeping forth from the flesh, forming razor like talons.

He then used vampiric speed and slashed Graham's throat, before slashing him in the chest twice. His body began to spasm and twitch at the massive blood loss, but there was clearly still life in his eyes. With a scream, the other four moved forward on him like vultures to a dead body. Graham let lose a gurgle of protest but within moments, he was mostly drained.

Claiming his victory the Leader's talons punctured his heart. As his nails receded, he cupped Graham's blood up in his hands and began to drink from it. As his eyes opened they were red with ferocity and satisfaction. A satisfaction that grew as his bretheren tore Graham apart.

* * *

As Lexie ran full speed outside, she bumped into Kendra of whom looked at her with keen eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"It's Graham... those things in the basement." were all Lexie was able to get out.

That being all she needed to hear Kendra grabbed her crossbow and ax, before running into the building. As she ran off, Lexie finally looked down into her hands to see what the young man had thrown to her. They were his dog-tags. Not knowing why but she clutched them to her heart and started to cry as she heard the last thing he said to her play in her mind.

'I'll hold them back for you.'

* * *

With somber expressions on their faces, with the exception of Oz of whom remained forever stoic, Jesse and the others walked into the house. And they also walked into the sounds of Lexie crying. Ghostly pale and sweating profusely, Oz quietly slipped out of the room.

"Hey, Lex what's wrong?" Jesse asked as he walked into the living room and saw Sam and Kendra comforting her. "Where's Graham?"

"He's dead." Sam replied for her as she handed Riley his dogtags. "There were some Night Stalkers at the hospital and... hey where's Donovan?"

"Suicide." Riley murmured, as he put his gun down and sat down next to his wife. "Sam there's something you need to know. Something all of you need to know." he said as he started to relate the story that Dr. Lawson had told them.

"So everybody is..."

"Yeah we're all infected." Riley told his wife. "Look we should keep this from the others right now. When I think the time is right, I'll..."

Before he could complete his sentence Alexandria and Caridad ran into the room.

"You... you guys need to come quick." Alexandria said trying to catch her breath. Taking a quick puff of her inhaler, she went on. "There's something wrong with Oz."

Giving each other a look Sam, Riley, Kendra and Jesse quickly walked into the kitchen. As they did, they saw Oz sitting at the table with his head down, unmoving.

"Oz, buddy are you ok?" Jesse asked as he walked up on him.

Grabbing his arm, he felt for a pulse and found none. "He's dead." Jesse announced. Seeing a blotch of blood on his long sleeved shirt, he rolled up his shirt and saw a bite mark on his forearm. "He must have gotten bit when we went to the CDC."

"Jesse get away from him." Riley said as he pulled a gun out of his side holster. Watching him, he saw that he took out a silver bullet. Chambering it he walked over to the table and pointed it at Oz's head. "I'm sorry about this man."

Right before he could pull the trigger, with lightning speed Oz sat up and slapped the gun out of Riley's hand. Grabbing the soldier around the neck, the shorter man threw him the length of the room.

As the former lead guitarist of Dingoes Ate My Baby turned around, they saw that his face was already half transformed to that of a werewolf. His body was starting to sprout grey fur and he seemed to be growing in height and muscles. But what was most striking about him, were his eyes. They were grey like that of a zombie, but they had red flecks in them.

Not getting lost in his eyes, Kendra ran forward and slapped him in the snout with her axe. As she went for another swipe, Were-Oz caught the handle and threw both of them up in the air and over the long elegant kitchen table.

Hearing a scream, it looked up and saw Caridad and Alexandria standing at the door. Letting loose a horrible roar, he was about to advance, when a gunshot rang out, making a decent sized hole in his chest. As Lexie dropped her arm, the revolver barrel still smoking, Were-Oz let out a final cry before falling over dead. For good measure Kendra walked over and cut off his head.

"What the hell was that?" Alexandria asked, as Caridad fainted.

"Oz... Oz was a Werewolf." Riley admitted.

"A Werewolf!?" Kendra asked angrily. "Are you mad? Why didn't you..."

"Because he learned how to control it." Sam said in support of her husband. "We knew the risks and he learned to control..."

"Control!? Control!? Jesse asked angrily. "You call that..." not even bothering to finish his own sentence, he angrily stomped out of the room.

Waiting until he was fully alone, Jesse sat in his room and took out his colt. Sitting on his bed he looked down at it before opening the chamber and letting all of the bullets hit the floor. Picking one up he loaded it back in the chamber and closed it.

Putting it back down on the bed, he just sat there looking at it. Deciding the hell with it and not seeing the reason for going on living, he picked it up and put it to his head and before he pulled the trigger he remembered his reason.

Kendra

If he couldn't live for anything else he would live for her. Putting the gun back down, he couldn't hold it in any longer and he started to cry. Feeling a pair of hands on his shoulder, he looked up and saw the object of his affection holding him.

'When did she come in?' he loosely thought to himself.

"I...I love you." he whispered into her ear. He had just seen too much death.

Looking down at the gun, Kendra swallowed hard before replying. "I Know."

The Next Day

The sun sat high in the sky and birds chirped peacefully as the whole gang all stood around Oz's grave. With a fresh tear rolling down her face, Sam hung her fallen friends and fellow soldiers dog-tags on Oz's grave marker. It was with regret that they couldn't bury their bodies so they had taken their dog-tags whenever someone had died.

As everyone took turns saying something about the people who had died and the family members and friends they had lost, Riley decided to go last.

"Graham was the kinda guy that could get under your skin." Riley started as he pointingly gave Jesse a look. "After all the years I knew him, he sure as hell got under mine. But that was because he was never afraid to say exactly what he thought, how he felt. That kinda honesty is rare. Especially now." he said as he stopped to look up at the sky as if talking about the whole world.

"Whenever I make a decision I looked at Graham and he'd look back at me with that look he had." he stopped for a second as a tear rolled down his cheek, memories long gone playing in his mind. "I couldn't always read him, but he could read me like a book. He knew things about this world... he knew the truth. So much so he risked his life a hundred times to save my ass and he gave his life to save others. Awhile ago, before we came here he told me that this world was broken and what was left of mankind would fade away into nothing."

As he said that he looked at each and every last one of their faces. "The best way we can honor him and everybody else that died, is to pull together into one group and do what we need to do to survive. We should go out and find others and bring them here too. What I'm saying is simply this. Let's prove him wrong."

A/N I also wanted to dedicate this chapter to my best friend. She committed suicide a few months ago because she had a tumor that the doctors couldn't operate on. I also decided to end this fic at least for now in the next chapter. It will have an uplifting ending but will give a glimpse of what's to come in the next season.


	11. Chapter 10 On The Side Of The Highway

A/N Well this is the end of this fic, atleast for awhile. I'm going to concentrate on some other things, but maybe I'll come back to this one, one day.

Chapter 10

On The Side Of The Highway Baby

Four months had passed since the funeral and all of them did the best that they could to keep that promise to the dead. It took some time and effort but they had finally made several solar panels and even a windmill to power the houses that were occupied. It had taken some doing but they even converted one of the houses into a hospital.

It also turned out that the town wasn't as barren as they thought, because they had found a handful of other survivors. They had been living in a mall every since the outbreak. Atleast one of them was ex-military and they had told them of a plan of them wanting to go to an island off of the coast of southern California called Catalina. After taking refuge with them however, they had changed their minds. Atleast for now.

Even though they had a rough year it was still good to be out on the open road. Especially with someone so beautiful. Kendra had finally agreed to be his girlfriend and it was the best feeling he had, in a long time.

Looking over at Kendra, who was keeping a watchful eye on the scenery as it passed by, Jesse smiled. It was the first time in awhile that he was alone with her. He had told Riley that he and Kendra were going to go out to some unexplored territory to check for supplies and survivors, but in reality he just wanted some time alone with her.

Pulling the truck over and placing it in park, her brows furrowed and she looked over at him.

"What are you doing?" she asked, looking into his eyes.

"What I wanted to do for a long time." he said as he pulled a black jewelry box out of his pocket. "Kendra will you mar..."

Before he could complete his sentence something loud slapped up against the glass of his window. Looking up he saw that over twenty walkers had somehow snuck up on them and surrounded the truck.

Taking it out of park, he tried to drive off only to his dismay to find out that he had stopped the truck in mud. The tires not getting enough traction, he knew they weren't going anywhere.

As he was about to ask Kendra what they should do they suddenly saw a knife being embedded in the head of one of the walkers. As it fell to the ground, they saw a pretty young woman wearing a pink summer dress and a too cheerful smile on her face. It seemed almost robotic.

As if that wasn't wierd enough, the zombies seemed to ignore her as she and five other girls came out of nowhere and started to kill off all of the zombies.

There job done, they all stood in front of Jesse's truck still smiling and started to wave at them. Not knowing what else to do, Jesse and Kendra started to wave back as they slowly got out of the truck.

"Hi." the girl in the pink dress said as she looked from Kendra to Jesse. "Are either of you two bit?"

"No." Jesse answered for both of them. "Who are you girls? Are you... Slayers?"

"That's enough girls." a voice called out from behind them. "You know I like to do all of the talking."

Turning, Jesse and Kendra saw that the man that had spoken in his early twenties with brown hair. Just looking into his face you could tell that he was king of all nerds. And standing next to him was the complete opposite. The man had huge muscles and a blonde crew cut hairstyle. And looking into his face, you could tell that he had been a bully his whole life. But what was more strange was that he held a huge war hammer, with a big silver head on it.

"You two step the hell back!" the muscle bound man barked out proving Jesse's point of him being a bully.

"Easy Brock, play nice." the man said with a smug smile. "Don't worry about him, he gets that way around new people."

"Who are you guys?" Jesse asked. "What the hell is going on?"

"Oh where are my manners." the dark haired man said as he extended his hand out for him to shake. "My name is Warren Mears. Welcome to Warrenville." he said pointing to a walled up community further down the street.

Looking at the wall carefully, he saw that it wasn't made out of just brick and wood. Human and demon skulls alike were stacked up almost as high as the eye could see. His stomach doing flip flops, Jesse wondered what he had gotten himself and Kendra into this time.


End file.
